The Dark Knight Rises director Christopher Nolan's next project looks likely to be an original science-fiction film about time travel and alternate dimensions written by the British film-maker's brother and regular collaborator Jonathan, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Following the box office success of the final film in his Batman trilogy, it would appear Nolan has been given carte blanche by studio Warner Bros to decide where to journey next. The director has already proved he has the nous to make highly profitable films from original material in the form of his 2010 brainteaser Inception, a high-concept sci-fi movie about a heist taking place inside the mind of a billionaire businessman that pulled in more than $800m worldwide. The new film, titled Interstellar, is said to be based on scientific theories developed by Kip Thorne, a theoretical physicist, gravitational physicist and astrophysicist at Caltech, the California Institute of Technology. Described as complex and multilayered, it will centre on a group of space explorers who travel through a wormhole.

Interstellar was previously set to be directed by Steven Spielberg, according to the Hollywood Reporter's exclusive, and it is unclear whether the latter will remain involved in a producing role. The film, unlike Nolan's previous work, will be financed by studio Paramount, where it began life, as well as Warner Bros.

In other sci-fi news, Spielberg has apparently shelved his own project Robopocalypse, based on the novel by Daniel H Wilson about a war between humans and robots intent on destroying them. Studio Disney announced the news yesterday in a statement, with sources telling Reuters the director was dissatisfied with a draft screenplay by Cabin in the Woods director Drew Goddard and production-budget estimates of at least $160m. The film had Anne Hathaway and Chris Hemsworth attached.

However, cinemagoers will not be short of big-budget films about robots in the coming years. The US director Michael Bay revealed yesterday that there will be at least three more films – a further trilogy – in his series of Transformers movies about warring races of giant metal aliens. The franchise has so far taken more than $2.67bn across the globe despite rampant critical derision. Mexican director Guillermo del Toro also has the film Pacific Rim, about human soldiers piloting – you guessed it – giant robots to see off an extraterrestrial threat, due in cinemas in July.